One Holy Medium
by onlystarchild
Summary: But you, you're not the only one who has fallen: A young man's shattered and disquieting thoughts on the death of his other half. HxD. Oneshot. Slash.


**Author:** onlyStarchild   _(onlystarchild@yahoo.com)_

**Disclaimer**:  I own nothing except the feeble plot, such as it is.  All recognizable names, situations, and places are the property of JK Rowling and various publishing companies.  I promise I will put everything back, safe and sound, once I'm done playing.

**Rating:** **R**

**Warnings**:  One-shot!  *SLASH*, character death, angst, adult situations, language, and other unpleasantness.  Don't like?  Don't read.  

**Summary:** "You're not the only one who has fallen."    A young man's shattered and disquieting thoughts on the death of his other half.  One-Shot.  Slash.  

**Reviews**:  Tell me how I'm doing!  Praise (*smiles hopefully*) as well as constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.  My first fic – be gentle . . . 

**Author's Note:**  (3.27.04) This story is the result of a rabid plot bunny that hopped into my head one day, and refused to leave until this was written.  My vision of the HP universe is usually not nearly this bleak, but, the story works.  I think.  ^ ^  Enjoy.   

**One Holy Medium**

  ~       ~       ~       ~       ~ 

_"Do unto you now what has been done to me._

_    ~_

_You're breathing so I guess you're still alive_

_even__ if signs seem to tell me otherwise._

_Won't you come just a bit closer,_

_close__ enough so I can smell you._

_I need you to feel this._

_I need this to make me whole._

_There's release in this sodomy._

_For I am your witness that _

_blood__ and flesh can be trusted._

_And only this one holy medium brings me piece of mind._

_   ~_

_I have found some kind of temporary sanity in this_

_shit__, blood, and cum on my hands."_

_~"Prison Sex" by Tool_

~       ~       ~       ~       ~

"I don't think it was supposed to end like this. 

"Isn't that the classic line?

"The lack of resolution is killing me.  The Wizarding World has other thoughts occupying their little minds, like the fall of the Dark Lord.  They nod towards your towering tribute and mutter their thanks, then return to their warm homes and warmer families and forget.  

"The world cares not for fallen angels.

"You aren't the only one who has fallen.

"But, I digress.  Honestly, it's to be expected.  Granger seems to fancy herself a doctor and has diagnosed my condition as bipolar.  

"I think she might be right.

"I've also heard her muttering something about deep-seated denial, but she has no room to talk.  Everything changed between us when you left.  I know I'm not helping – calling her Granger instead of her name from before – before _you_.  It throws her every time and her eyes mist over and go blissfully blank for a moment.  It reminds Granger that you're not here, and that fact has caused everything to change.

"Do you remember how it started?  Us?

"It is your fault of course – you were the catalysis.  You made contact.  You made me an offer I could never refuse.  

"You offered yourself to me.  

"Not in so many words, but the sacrifice was there, nevertheless.  You daringly cornered me in a dark corridor during the brief negligence of my friends.  We proceeded directly on to the usual banal banter that is so tried and true between us.  Then you did the unthinkable.  As I was busy threatening pain for your insult of my mother's name, you leaned forward and brushed your lips against my neck.  

"Your offer.

And something inside seemed to leap at your touch.  I didn't think about it.  I just turned my head and brought our mouths into contact.  

"My acceptance.  

"Then there was the sex.  Oh yes . . . 

"It was always passionate – but passion does not necessarily denote _feelings_ or gentleness.  Your passion was something that burned darkly inside – and you controlled it all.  Our relationship, that is.  If it could be call such.

"Sometimes you would pin me to the cold stone floor and my back would be rubbed raw by the friction of rough stones as you moved above me.  You always left immediately afterwards when it went like that – like you were disgusted to have lowered yourself to my so called level – to have given into your forbidden desire for me.  'Never again,' your eyes would say.  

"Your eyes had a habit of lying.

"Other times you would pull me down on top of you.  It was almost like you didn't want to think or act or move or have any responsibility.  You just let it happen.  I think you liked it best that way.  You moaned the prettiest then, anyhow.

"The best time was when you asked me to tie you up.  You had leaned close and pressed your body to mine and whispered huskily in my ear, "hurt me."  I learned that night you are not as proud as the world believes.  So I spread you before me like an etherized patient and lashed ropes around your slim form.  

"Knew Chrams class was good for something.

"You've never gotten off as quickly as you did that night – I didn't even need to touch you.   I just crouched and kissed you roughly and you gasped into my mouth and shuddered, and – you were absolutely beautiful.  

"I'm not sure if I could have hurt you, like you had begged.  I had always thought that hatred and abuse went hand in hand.  I'm wrong, of course.  Hatred is not so simple . . . 

"Maybe I didn't hate you anymore by then.

"Or maybe hate isn't strong enough of a word for us.

"The last time . . . I think you knew it was going to be the last time.  I think you felt the call – it was imbedded in your bones, in your core.  You came to me like always.  But it was different – so different.  We didn't just fuck that night.  

"No, we didn't fuck.  I think we made lo –

". . . 

"All of it was very final.  In the last coherent moment you leaned forward and kissed me gently – it was more gentleness than you have ever shown me.  You breathed something into my mouth that I could not understand, "ah 'of ou."

"Maybe I didn't want to understand.  

"I just pulled you closer and let the world fade away.

"The next time I saw you changed everything.  

"I'm convinced I heard the sound of my shattered world raining down around me when I saw your body.  It sounded like a cheap vial that has been carelessly knocked from a table: needless destruction, so fragile, irreversible.  Yet no one cares much for a few broken shards of glass . . . 

"They all saw you fall.  Saw the cruel blade twist, then retract from your heart and drip burgundy trials across the ground.  You exhaled sharply, looked down at your ruined chest, and gasped, "oh."

"You wildly looked around, as if trying to cast your final gaze onto someone.  I fantasize that you were looking for me.  But, I'll never know.

"Then you fell.

"Silently.  Silent death.  It didn't do you justice.

"No one saw me fall right after you.  No one noticed the crushed shards of my world that settled to the ground around you, with you.  But, everyone did noticed what happened next –

"I stood over your crumpled body and could feel the magic crackling though the very air around me – in me.  I had never felt a stronger hated for anything then at that moment.  It was like the weak flame that had been burning inside for years had suddenly met a stack of brittle, rotted wood.  The effect was instantaneous.

"Voldemort never stood a chance.

"Neither did anyone else unfortunate enough to be wearing a dark cape and masked face and be standing within 500 yards of me.  

"They said afterwards the intensity of the raw magic released in that moment of "pure angst" as Dumbledore dubbed it, had disrupted the world's magic continuum.  

"But, it didn't matter.  You were already gone.  

"I don't know if I could have saved you that day if I had been quicker.  Sometimes, I think you were already too far gone for me to be able to save you in any capacity.  Even back in the beginning – when all I cared about was your skin, your hips, your mouth, your sighs. . .  Was that why you first sought me out?  To save you?

"There wasn't anything left for me to save.  No hand holds – nothing to grasp – no way to hold on.

"Sometimes I think you would still be alive if it hadn't been for me.  Far from being your savior, I think I damned you.  False hope, perhaps.  I think I also took the last free part of your spirit – and trapped it somehow.

"'Ah 'of ou.'

"You shouldn't give away what you can't afford.  Maybe I did hurt you, after all.  

"Granger doesn't think so.  She thinks you had been falling for years – this was just the culmination of all you could not face.  Did I mention Granger has become a crazed bounty hunter who terrorizes the remaining Death Eater community?  In her spare time, she is an aspiring healer and shrink.  Somehow, she doesn't see the irony in that.  Told you she was still lodged firmly in denial.  But then, Granger isn't the one who gets aroused when she thinks of you.  Granger doesn't wake up with your name upon her lips – least, not to my knowledge.

"Surely there must be something wrong with being able to whack off to fantasies of dead people.  

"You haven't been dead all that long.  There is still free dirt around your grave with only a faint splattering of infantile grass.  Your name is still crisp and fresh in hard-edged letters on your headstone.  I think this inscription would have pissed the shit out of you.  Even in death you can not escape your infamy.  

". . . Remember I had said you weren't the only one who had fallen?   

"I think I have too.  And I hate it.  I don't know how to fix what is broken inside.  Bloody hell, I'm not even sure what broke.  

"Like I said, maybe hate wasn't enough for us.  

"You see, there are more ways then one to loose your soul.  I've lost mine to you."

~       ~       ~       ~       ~

Draco Malfroy, former Death Eater and unintentional savior of the Wizarding World, ran his hand over the headstone.  He pushed his fingers into the fissures and gaps and traced them while intently and steadily moving his lips as if reciting a eulogy.  Then his lips stilled, but he continued to caress the cold stone.  Eventually, he stood and brushed the stray dirt from his trousers.  He resignedly withdrew his hand from the marble and turned and walked away.  The wind whipped indifferently through the air and carried his departing whisper back to the fresh grave:

"Ah 'of ou, too."

~       ~       ~       ~       ~

**               Harry James**

**                    Potter**

          "The Boy who Lived"

                1981-1999.

_               Vade in pace._

~       ~       ~       ~       ~

_"I need you to feel this._

_I need this to make me whole . . ."_

~ Fin.

 ~       ~       ~       ~       ~      

References:

1.  'So I spread you before me like an etherized patient' – I borrowed this imagery from the amazing poem, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' by T.S. Eliot:

_"[…] When the evening is spread out against the sky_

_Like a patient etherized upon a table."_

2.  _Vade__ in pace._  Latin. Translates to 'Go in peace.'


End file.
